Quiz...What is it? (We have a correct answer!)

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 4:15 pm

Quite an easy one I think. Live subject. Scale bar might help.

Nikon MM-11 microscope, Olympus LPLFLN 50/0.50 objective. Canon T3i. 50X on sensor.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 4:39 pm

Not that easy.

I don't recall seeing an image like this, but I'm wondering if the very directional lighting is making this subject look different from other shots we've seen.

Is this one of your Floscularia rotifers?

--Rik

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 5:39 pm

Not a rotifer. There was a reason why I needed to use a "harder" directional light on this rather than my normal diffusers. (That may be an extremely vague hint).

but I'm wondering if the very directional lighting is making this subject look different from other shots we've seen.

I've not seen this view posted before (... actually I've never seen an image of this detail before... but we all know the subject well).

Saul · Post by **Saul** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 9:56 pm

Stigma ?

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 10:50 pm

Hhmm....

Directional light illuminating just the interior of a 0.093 mm diameter tube with inward-pointing teeth on the inside surface, belonging to a live subject.

I'm thinking this subject was light-sensitive and the illumination was partly to keep it quiet.

But what sort of tube would have a structure like that?

Mosquito larva siphon, or pupa trumpet?

--Rik

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:00 am

Mosquito pupa trumpet!

Here's a top view with a 10X...

Another 10X from the side. It was too active for me to get a complete front to back stack, so I concentrated on the eye area...

Here's an old shot from about 3 years ago that gives a better perspective to the location of these respiratory tubes...

The reason I couldn't diffuse the light more was that in order to keep the pupa somewhat centered under the microscope objective it was in a small petri dish in a small "dome" of water. Because of the water surface shape I couldn't use any diffusers/reflectors without some serious reflection problems. When the pupa was at rest it would rise to the top of the water curvature and give me enough time for a small image stack. It did drift around a tiny bit between shots (looked like more than "a bit" with the 50X

), but Zerene did a great job of aligning things.

arturoag75 · Post by **arturoag75** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:23 am

Incredible job Charles..as usual

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:48 am

Well, once again I'm looking for the "hanging slack-jawed in amazement" emoticon, and not finding it. And again I'm reminded of the greatest reward of writing software: seeing other people use it to produce far better images than I ever could. Amazing work, Charlie!

--Rik

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:58 am

Charlie,

Wow, amazing job!

Congratulations.

Rogelio

myriophyllum · Post by **myriophyllum** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 8:20 am

Wow, Charles,

very impressive and interesting images, just great!

Greetings

Jens

curt0909 · Post by **curt0909** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 9:53 am

Rik, I don't know how you got that on your second guess.

Charlie, the 10x photos are unbelievable. Thanks for showing your methods as well.

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 9:56 am

awesome

Litonotus · Post by **Litonotus** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 10:00 am

it's just amazing how creative you are (: world top class (:

kriscavok · Post by **kriscavok** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 10:15 am

Amazing indeed! Both concept and execution. I still do not see whole picture how did you approach this setup with microscope objective...

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 10:40 am

curt0909 wrote:Rik, I don't know how you got that on your second guess.

It's a tribute to my limited imagination and Charlie's excellent clues. After Floscularia, aquatic insects were the only things I could think of that might have structures like this and would be described as "live subject". Of those, mosquito larvae and pupae were the only ones that fit the clue "we all know the subject well". Web search on other images didn't let me rule out either one, so I went for both.

In fairness, "pupa trumpet" was my third guess. I posted just "larva siphon?" first, then a couple of minutes later edited the post to include pupa trumpet.

--Rik